Suicide Squad – Review

Suicide Squad is the third film in the DC Extended Universe, following Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, and is directed by David Ayer. The film stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto.

I’m just going to say this straight off the bat; this was a good movie. Don’t let critics sway you towards hating this! The characters were great adaptations of the source material, and the action scenes looked cool. Some of the plot was a little predictable and clichéd, but the predictability and clichés didn’t stop it from being a fun ride.

Let’s just jump straight into the characters by talking about one of the more controversial castings for this film. Leto was an awesome Joker. There will be a lot of people comparing him to the legendary performance that Heath Ledger gave us. That needs to stop. We need to let Leto be his own Joker and he is just that. It’s a very unique take on the character that screams “this is only the beginning for me”. Also, Harley was awesome. Margot Robbie did the role complete justice (JUSTICE LEAGUE PUNS HAR HAR HAR HAR). I will say this though, not doing the classic, crazy Harley voice was the absolute right call. Otherwise, it would have made the character VERY campy and terrible.

Will Smith was an awesome Deadshot. I’ll admit, I don’t know too much about the character outside of the Arrow TV series, however I personally felt that he did a really good job portraying the struggle of a single dad who also happens to be a super villain. Also, can we talk about Diablo? Holy crap that dude is awesome. Jay Hernandez delivered Diablo’s backstory so well that I felt really bad for him and he felt more like a victim of circumstance rather than a flat out super villain, like the rest of the team.

While the entire cast did amazing jobs in their roles, the easy stand outs for this film were Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc. While we kind of knew from the marketing of the film that Boomerang would be the comedic relief of the film, Croc was absolutely hilarious in the few lines he spoke during the film. Another thing to note about Croc is that his make up looked absolutely incredible. Boomerang has to be the villain for the Flash movie coming up. It would be a travesty if they couldn’t go a round in the movies.

Something I thought would happen in the film that wasn’t really explored was Amanda Waller’s brutality. There needed to be more of it. Fans of the comic books know how brutal she can be and while we got glimpses of that brutality, it was nowhere near the level that comic book fans know she can get to. Viola Davis, however, was a great Amanda Waller and I hope they bring her back for future movies so they can explore her intensity.

And now for the light spoilers! Don’t read these unless you’ve seen the movie, or just don’t care.

Spoilers

There were a couple of issues I did have though, and they related specifically to the backstories of our protagonists. We got a messy origin story for Harley at the start of the movie (which yes, it’s the classic origin story), and then a flash back to her full transformation from Harleen into Harley Quinn later in the film. Plus Boomerang and Croc got very “blink and you’ll miss it” introductions on how they came to be, which was a little disappointing. The biggest issue of the film however, was with Slipknot. If you haven’t figured it out already, he dies pretty early on, via Rick Flag blowing the bomb in his neck. But his death means absolutely nothing to the character, and instead serves as a warning to the Squad that the bombs implanted in their necks are serious business. If he’d been hyped up in the marketing material as much as the other Squad members, his death at the start of the film would have had an impact, and it would have felt similar to KGBeast’s death from the Assault on Arkham animated film.

SUMMARY: Overall, Suicide Squad was great. It was a lot better than Batman v Superman and was an easier story to follow. It was worth the price of admission.

SCORE: 85%

Oh, and don’t forget, totally stay for the mid credits scene. Don’t be one of those people that walk out at the start of the credits.